Costumed
by QuiteQuiet
Summary: Blake is deterred from attending a Halloween street fair. Weiss has reason to go, and seeks the explanation behind Blake's planned absence.


_**Author's Note: Hey all, decided to flitter in with some Halloween-based Monochrome.**_

 _ **I'm worried the elements don't really tie together, along with the link between Weiss and Blake. Hopefully these things are clear enough.**_

 _ **It's kind of funny to me that each of my one-shots for this pairing constitutes as a first date. Choose Your Own Adventure, apparently.**_

* * *

Weiss was too old for any sort of activity involving candy, but she did find use in helping set up for an event. Things like Halloween only came once a year, after all, so it made sense to be festive about it. Even the staff at Beacon was getting into it, stringing up black cobwebs and placing around campus crafts depicting awful beasts apart from Grimm. In order to make the holiday worthwhile, Weiss had volunteered to make some props for display at Vale's upcoming annual street party.

It was mostly for one of her few bursts of nostalgia. Weiss's family had gone to several of these parties when she was little, before she lost her mother. Weiss would be reminded of her in two weeks, when the familiar would whisk away on one magical night to let the realm of spirits ride into the city roads. There was certainly candy at the party, lots of it; it seemed just walking to one of the many tables set up under orange awnings would get a wrapper or two inside your bag. Weiss and her sister always got their share in shining, delicate outfits, white to fit the family theme. While Weiss loved collecting candy as a kid, her father reminded her through action and word that it was important to appear with decorum. Weiss would emulate his behavior long enough to keep him happy.

She also liked looking at the crowds of costumed people from the safety of her mother's side. Weiss found something oddly comforting in seeing the streets spinning alive with demons and ghouls and beasts baring sharp teeth, and knowing by the next day they would have all gone away into a year of hibernation, revealing ordinary people under the masks.

What Weiss remembered most, though, were the flickering candles lined up across a brick wall by the street corner. The wicks sat in the middle of inch-high circular holders, placed just level with Weiss's gaze. Her sister found the candles effective for the atmosphere and paid no further attention. Seeing more in them, Weiss would always sneak away from her family to catch a minute by the brick wall. When she was seven she began to feel the candles were placed there just for her. They became her private celebration, and though even back then it filled her with a strange foolish guilt, Weiss would spend many nights of the following year thinking about the licks of candlelight dancing for her on that isolated wall.

This was what Weiss was preparing for when she sat in an empty sparring room in Beacon fitting the straw-packed burlap of a scarecrow inside a raggedy brown coat. She'd stitched an arrested, senile smile into its head, with no seam touching another and two buttons making eyes in the middle of twin plus signs. An hour before, she'd finished up the touches on a horrifying werewolf, and was set to wrap soaked gauze around the wire frame of a mummy after finishing her current fare. Maybe she missed Halloween more than she previously recognized.

Somewhere in trying to make the scarecrow look right, Weiss's thoughts drifted to her teammates. Ruby and Yang were certain to rush around town until they were sick. Weiss wasn't sure what Blake would do, though, and it made her curious. Blake didn't seem like one to either party or simply hang around. Weiss knew she could just ask Blake's plans, so she tried to put it out of her mind. But the longer she sat in the empty room, the more she couldn't help wondering. She was distracted enough to become completely unproductive. When one sleeve slid off the scarecrow's arm for the 15th time, Weiss stood up. "Forget it," she said, and gathered everything into the wagon she'd wheeled in. When she was putting the props in her locker, Blake came walking down the tiled floor of the locker room.

"Oh. Blake," said Weiss, putting her weight against the scarecrow in attempt to fit it in with everything else. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting Gambol Shroud to clean it," Blake said with a shrug. She turned to her locker next to Weiss's and turned the combination.

"What are you doing for Halloween this year?" Weiss asked while pushing the scarecrow's right leg behind the werewolf.

"What? Oh, I don't know," said Blake. "I might stay in." The hinges of her locker creaked as she opened the door.

"Stay in? That's no fun."

"What am I supposed to do? Dress up and go trick-or-treating? I'm too old for that."

"Well, you don't have to do that," said Weiss. "But it's a national holiday. Surely you can find something to get involved in."

Blake didn't respond as she reached in to get her weapon. She followed its path with her eyes as she transferred the handles to her open palms. "Blake," said Weiss, making her look up. "A little help here?"

Blake went over and tucked the scarecrow's head under the brim of the locker. " _There_ we go," said Weiss, shoving in the rest. "I can't believe how much space these things take up." Blake was silent again, looking at the snarl Weiss had molded into the werewolf.

"Well," said Weiss, snapping Blake back to attention, "there's always a lot of things going on this time of year. I'll even tell you about them." And she did.

"Did you hear about the storytelling contest in the courtyard tomorrow evening?" Weiss asked when Blake was reading under her covers with a flashlight.

"No," said Blake, not lifting the sheets to look at Weiss by her bedside. "And I'm not going. I don't trust people to handle atmosphere."

Weiss tried again in the cafeteria. "There's a scavenger hunt in the city. First prize gets 50 lien."

"I don't want to."

A study lounge. "JNPR and I are roasting marshmallows."

"No."

First thing in the morning. "I could use help finishing up costumes," said Weiss as Blake scratched her head and slipped her feet to the floor. "I just had to do the final touches on the mummy, but they called me and now they want me to make a vampire and a demonic lion. I mean, seriously. A demonic lion. I have to combine the two. I don't know who comes up with this stuff. Anyway, I'm going to be busy the next few days, and the others are busy getting their costumes ready, so I thought maybe you would like to help me make—"

" _No,_ Weiss," said Blake, turning abruptly away. "Leave me alone."

Weiss bristled. She puffed her cheeks. She stamped her foot. "Well, it's just a suggestion!" was all she could manage, and she didn't even turn on the lights when she went to that isolated sparring room to work.

In the late afternoon, she went out for a walk. In the courtyard she saw Blake standing in front of a snarling panther placed behind a row of bushes. Adapted enough to stand on two legs, it leaned forward with claws unsheathed below its chin, its sharpened plaster teeth painted red. Its eyes glinted the same bloody color, narrow and pupilless and round as an orb. Weiss hesitated when she saw it. Even under only the faintest shade of the setting sun, the monster was so grotesque it sent a shiver up her spine. For a moment she observed Blake, who was gazing into the panther's face with a crease in her brow.

"Do you have bad memories of Halloween?" Weiss asked.

Blake's shoulders collapsed, and she crumbled into herself. "Yes," she said. "All the other kids said I was a freak." Her voice cracked in a whisper. "I tried going into town with my bow on, but they said I wasn't wearing a real costume and ripped it off. They were screaming the entire time they chased me back into the woods."

She slid her hands over her elbows. Weiss glanced at the panther and thought a little bit.

"Blake," she said, and the Faunus looked miserably up. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

"Thank you," Blake muttered, eyes casting to the side.

"And I can see how being treated as the monster on Halloween would keep you away from it. Even then, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?" Blake grunted in the middle of a swallow. She nodded. "So it can be different now," said Weiss. "Everyone's so caught up in the celebration that they won't even notice whether someone is a Faunus or not. Everyone's there to have fun, together," she said, and the sudden image of her mother flitted across her memory.

"Well, I don't see you planning anything with Ruby and Yang," mumbled Blake.

"That's because they're going trick-or-treating. But you, Blake Belladonna," Weiss said. She slid a foot back, slanting like an arrow as she pointed at Blake. "Are too old to for trick-or-treating. As am I. Also, I'm too mature for it. So. If you're not doing anything this Halloween"—a tremor of uncertainty flickered in her heart—"will you accompany to Vale's street party?"

Blake was standing straight now, looking down on Weiss's finger. Her bottom lip was open. "I guess," she said a few seconds later. "But I don't know what I would dress up as."

"You can be the lion," Weiss said simply, pivoting on her heel. "I don't care if they get mad I'm not turning it into a prop. I have enough straw to feed a farm. You'll have a fine little mane, if maybe scratchy."

The tip of Blake's mouth twitched into a smile. "Scratchy is fine," she said.

"Then it's settled." Weiss flattened her palms and joined them in front of her chest. She held in place to keep her legs from jittering. "I'll have to get a measurement around your neck, of course, but after that just leave everything to me."

"I'll help you with the mummy," said Blake, and a row of shivers climbed up Weiss's neck.

They met on the edge of campus after two nights and took a Bulkhead to Vale. Weiss had dyed the straw black and smoothed it into a V-shaped mane that ruffled slightly at the back. She'd applied a touch of Dust to make it glow softly with sparkles. The two of them arrived to the edge of the street party in a black tuxedo and a white dress, as Weiss decided to be a ghostly bride. She observed the people mingling between the tables and briefly thought of her mother. Beside her she felt Blake standing rigid, and bumped the Faunus with her elbow. Blake jerked her head down, her mouth stretched tight, and then she nodded. They both relaxed. They slipped silently in and swayed down the road.

At the end of their night they moved away from the crowd. The hem of Weiss's dress shifted over the curb as they moved onto the sidewalk. It glowed translucent in the moonlight. She looked up at Blake, nebulas of Dust still spotting along the Faunus's mane. The blotches pulsed for a moment and then disappeared, like a dim flame going out. Weiss reached out for Blake's arm. They walked down the sidewalk in a world of their own. At the very outskirts of the party they stopped, and turned to the candles sitting on the brick wall.

Weiss looked at each little flame dancing on their wick. She held her gaze to the four candles directly in her sight, and bent down so they were at her level. She pinched their circular holders, gently, and found they were made of glass. She moved them closer together and stepped back. They each stood on their own, four wisps so close together yet not connected. Weiss stayed there with her wrists lying over her knees, until she felt Blake put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up. They kept walking. The whiteness of the moon shone bright in the sky.


End file.
